Re: FB designs & fighters

On Mon, 6 May 2002 21:57:57 -0400, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>So if you change the rules, how will Ark Royals Fair against other FB 
>ships? Ark

It depends on how we change the rules, doesn't it?

>What does 6 squadrons do against a Cruiser? It should shred it as 
>well. Regardless. 6 squadrons is the weapons fit of an Ark Royal that 
>makes it different from a Valley Forge. It should have such an 
>effect. If 3 Valley Forges rolled up on a target they could

Depending on the cruiser, 6 squadrons should shred it.

Here's an example.

The Richthofen is worth 351 points. It has 3 PDS, 31 hull boxes, 6
armour
boxes. I'll ignore the class 1 beams for now.

Now, if I have it correct, a single PDS will destroy .8 fighters, on
average.
(1/2 the time it does nothing, 1/3 it does one point, 1/6 * 1/2 the time
it
does two points -- a 6 followed by a reroll of 1 to 3 --, 1/6 * 1/3 the
time
it does 3 points of damage, 1/6 * 1/6 * 1/2 the time it does 4, etc.,
etc.).

On average, the Richthofen's PDS will destroy 2.4 fighters. On average,
each
fighter left alive will do .8 points of damage to the Richthofen.

Six squadrons, losing 2.4 fighters, will do 26.88 points of damage.
That's
enough to do some heavy damage to the Richthofen.

However, let's look at what 20 squadrons would do. 20 squadrons against
a ship
with 3 PDS would do 94 points of damage. Kiss off the Richthofen. 20
fighter
squadrons are worth 360 points. What's worse, the squadrons would still
have
about 117 fighters left.

Here's another example, 6 squadrons against the Komarov (4 PDS, 2 class
1
beams, 2 shields, 88 hull points, 751 NPV). This is a better defended
ship.
The shields mean that a fighter squadron does, on average, .4 damage
each.
Similarly, the Class 1 beams do .4 points of damage each. 

The Komarov would do 4 points of damage to the fighters, on average.
Against 6
squadrons, that leaves 32 fighters. Those 32 would do an average of 12.8
points of damage to the Komarov. Not enough to get to a threshold. On
the
second turn, the fighter squadrons lose another 4 fighters and do 11.2
points
of damage. This would put the Komarov over a threshold, but the fighters
would
have lost 8 out of 36. At this point, threshold checks are probably
going to
reduce the fighter defences, but you can see that eventually the Komarov
will
win this fight (though the 6 fighter squadrons are only worth 108
points,
though they seem to be giving more than they are taking).

Let's see what happens with 20 squadrons of fighters... 120 fighters,
total,
are reduced by 4 by the Komarov. They would then do an average of 46.4
points
of damage. Enough to crash the Komarov through 2 thresholds. Even if the
Komarov was lucky and survived with all Class 1s and PDS remaining, the
next
round of fighter attacks would kill her. 360 NPV of fighters took out
751 NPV
of SDN, at a cost of only 8 fighters.

>Really all that will happen as I understand it is that the 
>"effectiveness point" for fighters will be moved higher. Requiring 
>more min-maxing in order to get more than one suicide mission of 
>fighters.

No, because the more fighters you throw at a ship the more shots the PDS
has
at them. Under the suggested rule, the Komarov's 4 PDS would get to fire
at
all 20 squadrons, doing 64 points of damage (let's ignore the Class 1s).
The
remaining fighters would then do 22.4 points of damage, thus crashing
the
Komarov through a threshold check. They would then be best to break off.
Sounds nasty for the fighters, but they'd still have 56 fighters left.
They'd
have 168 out of 360 points remaining. That means they lost 192 points in
the
fight. The Komarov would have lost 1/4 its hull boxes. If you take the
NPV of
the Komarov and divide it by 1/4, it lost 188 points of "value" in the
exchange. Seems a pretty fair exchange, point wise, to me.

Taking an extreme case of 40 squadrons(!), the Komarov would take out
128
fighters in the first attack, leaving 112. They would then push the
Komarov
through two thresholds. Chances are the Komarov would lose 1.8 PDS. With
2 PDS
left, the Komarov would take out 64 more fighters. The remaining 48
would do
19.2 points. Not enough to get through another threshold, but close.

And this is for 720 points of fighters versus a 751 point ship. If you
think
that fighters are crippled, here's something else to consider: fighters
do
their damage far more quickly than any other weapon system. How many
hips
could get a Komarov down to near it's third threshold in 2 turns?

I think the PDS option would work. I agree with something Derek has said
about
making fighter morale optional, because I think you really _do_ need to
let
fighters survive better under this ruling. I'd also assume that "lost
fighters" are not totally destroyed and would have a percentage
recoverable in
a campaign game. 

(Just to show the difference in the proposed idea and the current rules,
40
squadrons of fighters would push a Komarov through a threshold point in
the
first turn of attack. The loss to the fighters would be 4. 720 points of
fighters can easily shred 3 or 4 Komarovs.)

>The best I can see is allowing limited use of PDS against 
>fighters within 3" radius. Several DDs or CAs could buddy protect 
>each other as they would during such an engagement.

Then fighters would move to within 4" of a ship and be totally immune to
PDS?

>So then explain to me why St Jon included fighters and carriers in 
>the game at all if they aren't realistic?

Because space opera has them... Jon's simultating sci-fi, not reality.

>I'm giving rational 
>doctrine behind fighters and you're saying it's nonsensical. 

I'm saying that the idea that Full Thrust doesn't represent modern day
carrier
doctrine in space is irrelevant. You could argue, though, that Full
Thrust
doesn't let you represent carrier battles as found in space opera
novels. 

>Does the NAC really have that much of an 
>over-population of crop-dusting farmer's kids?

Well, this gets into _my_ pet peeve of humans in space fighters in the
first
place. Given that the US has armed drones for use in Afghanistan, given
that
humans require life support, given that humans can't withstand anywhere
near
the g's that a fighter itself can withstand, and given that the RAF and
USAF
are working to produce autonomous fighters within 20 years, I don't see
why a
couple of centuries from now we're putting "crop-dusting farmer's kids"
in
fighters. They should all be computer controlled, autonomous fighters. 

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, 
unimaginable mortician was revealed!"